A New Project - in the Footsteps of James Bradley Thayer and Judge Jack B. Weinstein

I have accepted an invitation to serve as one of the editors of the next edition - the 10th edition - of Jack B Weinstein, John H Mansfield, Margaret A Berger (deceased) & Norman Abrams Evidence: Cases and Materials (University Casebook Series) (West Publishing & Foundation Press, updated 9th ed., 1997). This casebook has a distinguished lineage: it is a descendant of the evidence casebook published by James Bradley Thayer in 1892.

I will continue to work with Scott Brewer and Joannes Vinarao-Pilapil on the projected treatise The Structure of Proof in Modern American Trials (Aspen Publishers) (for multivolume set The New Wigmore).

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The dynamic evidence page
Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan
It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.

Are Entering Law Students Less Well Educated Today?

Like probably every law professor in the U.S., I sometimes wonder if today's entering law students are less well educated than their predecessors were. I think that's why the following item caught my attention:

Professor [Philip] Babcock has written extensively about college students’ evolving study habits (or lack thereof) over the last 50 years. He found that in 1961, full-time students spent about 40 hours each week in class and studying. By 2003, they were investing about 27 hours a week.

Catherine Rampell, Why Students Leave the Engineering Track, New York Times (online) (Jan. 21, 2012).

This posting might lead you to wonder if Peter Tillers was always an industrious and diligent student in college and law school. Tillers told me he refuses to answer this question here (mainly  because, he said, a full answer answer would have to be nuanced -- and, hence, lengthy). But he did say he believes in redemption and he did tell me he thinks it is impossible to learn how to write, how to do higher mathematics, how to reason about evidence, and so on, without doing a lot of work. He also said to me, "Wisdom does not come easily."

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The dynamic evidence page
Evidence marshaling software MarshalPlan
It's here: the law of evidence on Spindle Law. See also this post and this post.